IOTA Contest
Call: G8D
Operator(s): G3SJJ, G4DRS, G4IIY
Station: G3SJJ
Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: Nottingham
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
80: 134 35 107 38
40: 273 47 149 35
20: 462 42 495 55
15: 202 15 161 26
10: 12 11 15 115
----------------------------------------
Total: 1083 150 927 269 Total Score = 3,313,134
Club:
Comments:
After 10 years of operating from GU, it was quite an experience setting up a
multi-op station from home. We used the new summer house so everything had to
be moved into there. I had planned to do this early in the week but the high
temperatures curtailed much work. I progressed slowly on Thursday in between
showers, (bathroom type!) Friday morning I had to leave John DRS in his own
whilst I was involved with local residents in filming for a new BBC program
featuring HGVs on country lanes! I got a speaking part!! I wasn't surprised on
my return to find a 40ft gin pole type mast fully assembled and the 4 ele 10m
beam ready to go on top. That's John! Ian arrived later and set about trying to
get 3 laptops from various sources talking to each other. Meanwhile I was
rewiring some connectors to change from source to sink drive relay switching
system. Topten 6 way box being one way and WX0B Sixpak being the other. What a
pain. Numerous smaller things like this and the networking conspired to delay
our start and really affected our moral at the start. Highlights :
- For me, being called by VP8NO on 40m CW. Mike and I go back a long way to our
early days in Nottm Radio Club so it was particularly good to have our first QSO
for many years.
- The RF side worked very well. Using the Sixpak enabled Mult station to use
any of the antennas Run station wasn't using. It worked like a dream. S&P got
the QSO on first call and we had many Big Sig reports on Run which considering
it was 2nd league setup was very pleasing to us all. Only one minor RFI problem
on a Sixpak control cable cured by a couple of clip on ferrites.
- N1MM (apart from mults, see later) is really a smooth program to use. Once
the wireless network was up and running it worked without a blip. We had two
laptops in the summerhouse, one in my main shack as as Wireless Access Point
and DX Cluster via Telnet and even my wife's desktop in her study area. We
could keep a check on our progress where ever we were! Just didn't manage to
get the third laptop up and running so no Run/same mode multing on 2nd rx.
Enter Sends Message really makes running a pileup so easy and relaxed.
Lowlights for me: I hate using mouse in a contest anyway but late planning
meant that we hadn't realised we could only use keyboard or mouse, not both. I
opted for keyboard since I don't like laptop keyboards but found the lack of a
real mouse really annoying. Progress eh?
Perhaps the overall worst thing was N1MM Mult handling. Having used K8CC's NA
logger and then Writelog over the 10 years we were used to good mult
indication. I know Jim MM0BQI has campaigned about this and I can now fully
understand his frustration. Our passing of mults was severely limited this
time.
Finally an observation on operating from UK mainland. Found a distinct
disadvantage in not using the GU callsign. Rates were lower and I am sure many
mult hunters didn't call because they already had EU5. Mainland UK stations
only worth 3 and not 15 points so we didn't bother with inter G at its peak
times.
and finally ! CW contesting is much easier than SSB so we often took that
path!!
FT1000MP x2, Acom 1000 and TL922. mHam Keyer.
Excellent Chevron paddle on loan from M0AGA
http://www.chevronmorsekeys.co.uk/
80m - 1/4w vertical and dipole at 57ft
40m - 1/4w vertical (2nd element of the phased pair has broken)
20m - A4S at 57ft when running, paralleled 20/15 dipole at 50ft on S&P
15m - as per 20m
10m - 4 el 10m monobander at 40ft.
Chris G3SJJ
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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